milton cross

milton cross - light in the west (digitals, 2008)

You might not have heard of Milton Cross, but you've certainly heard of the main band he's in (Tarentel). He's also a member of Dial Square and Party of Doom. "Light in the West" was originally self-released in a limited CDR format, but has now been remastered and reworked (some tracks removed, some new ones added) and reborn in this new skin.

Cross does his best work when he's playing his violin or harmonium. He's classically trained and his skill is immediately apparent. Both instruments permeate the album, adding a thick layer of glowing warmth to the songs which they haunt. From the heartbreaking opener, "It's Been Almost a Year" to the quiet, wavering whispers of "Future Ghost," Cross has created an album full of endless layers and organic details. Each listen reveals something new to dissect and digest. It's an album we are very proud to resurrect from the ether.

Packaged in two-color silkscreened gatefolds. Limited to 500 copies. All new artwork by Eden Hemming Rose.
First 100 copies include special, handnumbered pressed-leaf insert.

download

clem alford (rare earth XXIII)

clem alford - mirror image (ex-magic carpet, 1974)

Clem Alford was born in Glasgow, Scotland, where he studied the Scottish national instrument, the bagpipes. He was introduced to the sound of the sitar in the mid sixties. He travelled to India and studied under Pandit Sachindranath Saha, principal of the Midnapore Music College in West Bengal. He secured the diploma of Sangeet Sudhakar for expertise in sitar from Surer Maya Sangit Samaj of Calcutta in 1970. Clem's first major recital was in Bombay in november 1970, an event which the Times of India flashed in its headlines as "American's astounding skill, ease in sitar" (a slight case of mistaken nationality!). It was this sitar recital at the celebrated Kal-ke Kalakar Sammelan of Bombay which won Clem the rich accolade of 'Sur Mani' (a jewel of notes)Keshav Sathe, Clem Alford, Jim Moyes, 1971. Since then Clem has performed not only in the West but also in India, Japan and other Asian countries. He has been hailed by many experts and the press as the best western sitar player of today. An example of this recognition was his participation in the concert held in 1975 in the Royal Albert Hall, in which he was presented along with the leading Indian vocalist Laxmi Shankar.

Clem has been associated with the famous John Williams (classical guitar) John Mayer (composer/ Indo Jazz Fusions) Maurice Jarre (film scores) John Dankworth (jazz) Hemmant Kunar (vocalist) and a host of other striking personalities in the world of music. He has recorded for EMI, amongst other labels, and has authored a very helpful book on how to play the sitar published by EMI. In 1970 he formed a group named Sargam with two other musicians - Jim Moyes (guitar) and Keshav Sathe (tabla) - and this innovative trio (see picture above) recorded an album inappropriately released as Pop Explosion Sitar Style! under the band name Sagram, mispelt by the Windmill recording company, who issued the recording without the bandÕs consent or knowledge. This LP that has since become highly collectable. Then, in 1971 Alisha Sufit joined the trio and the Magic Carpet band was formed; the album Magic Carpet was recorded in the winter of 1971-1972, later released on Mushroom Records.

Pediente estaba desde hace unos meses en rare earth la primera aventura en solitario del extraordinario Clem Alford tras Magic Carpet. Discípulo de Pandit Sachindranath Saha, sus ragas se sumergen en eternas e instrumentales melodías improvisadas donde la inventiva es una constante, para muestra la canción que da título al album. El místico sitar de Clem se ve arropado por la tradición hindú y sus ragas se pasean entre la fusión y la psicodelia -sintes, efectos, tabla, flauta...-.

aldea f: magic carpet
download: mirror image (part 1) & mirror image (part 2)

tom carter & christian kiefer

tom carter & christian kiefer - from the great american songbook (preservation,2008)

This second collaborative work from the pair is an expansive and ambitious recasting of American music now in the public domain. The influence of the songs collected here is long and widespread for their style and lyricism, forging a rich tradition and ever evolving history. With their interpretations, Carter and Kiefer have taken the songs that have seeped into their souls and extended upon them in such a way that brings something entirely new to their original ideas. It’s something that’s entirely theirs in spite of such source material, and with that, From The Great American Songbook brilliantly reveals a true hallmark of American music invention.

So, we have the infamous murder ballad Pretty Polly, the comic Camptown Races, the funeral Will The Circle Be Unbroken, the outlaw tale of Jesse James, the depression piece Hard Times Killin’ Floor Blues, the ragtime of The Entertainer and the doomed love trysts of Railroad Boy and The Coo Coo Bird. Carter and Kiefer have taken the spirit of these as a starting point for their spectral guitar improvisations, then fleshed them out with piano, percussion, bass and drums. In this thrillingly vast sonic terrain are moments of foreboding, tenderness, melancholy and gut-wrenching rawness.
Two of Kiefer’s longtime cohorts, Scott Leftridge and Chip Conrad played bass and drums respectively, while Califone’s Ben Massarella handled percussion. Also contributing to From The Great American Songbook is a host of American musicians – including Tony Conrad, James Jackson Toth, Glenn Jones, and Sharron Krauss – with their reminiscences and insights into these songs with which they also found great personal resonance.

aldea f.: tom & christian
download

helena espvall & masaki batoh

helena espvall & masaki batoh - helena espvall & masaki batoh (drag city, 2008)

If the pentagrams and moccasins and ponchos of the now nearly bygone “freak folk” era made listening to Fairport Convention cool again, Helena Espvall and Masaki Batoh's self-titled collaboration serves as a reminder that British longhairs of the ’60s were nerds, nerds, nerds. Cellist Espvall, best known for her work with Espers, and Batoh, the guitarist of Japanese psych band Ghost, deploy an arsenal of exotic stringed instruments. They play earnest covers of folk songs from Espvall’s native Sweden, with her clear, thin voice taking the lead, then close the album with an epic improvisation complete with oceanic sounds. So far, so Incredible String Band. Listeners should not equip their local forest glade with a maypoles or prep tarot cards in anticipation of the arrival of Helena Espvall and Masaki Batoh. Both Espers and Ghost succeed by blending virtuosity with an ability to imbue their music with true eeriness. Despite its medieval chord progressions and finger-cymbals, Espvall and Batoh’s record is more earnest than evocative. The album does not sustain a mood – like a ’60s folk album that jumps from sea-chanty to murder ballad to sitar-enhanced jam, it seems too studious to carry real emotional weight.

Rather, it bears sheer instrumental prowess and vague loveliness as its hallmarks. The folk songs with Espvall’s reverb’d vocals rising over Batoh’s meticulously-picked strings (electric and non) and her own gently rumbling cello are very pretty. The instrumentals often seem like efforts to bring disparate string instruments together, just to see how nice they sound together. On the delicate “Zeranium,” Batoh’s near croon leads the song closer to Low or Ida than the typical freak folk album of yesteryear.

Batoh and Espvall’s skillful musicianship ensure that each individual song works (aside from a misguided cover of the Son House song "Death Letter”), particularly the last two tracks, “Kling Klang” and the enveloping jam "Kyklopes." The menagerie of instruments unleashed and variety of songs attempted leave one with the impression that Espvall and Batoh had a great time figuring out each others' strengths, interests, and influences, and experimenting in the studio. But the deliberateness that resulted, when overlaid with the record's painfully clear, spacious production, void the album of spirit. It's deft enough, and holds the promise of further interesting Espvall/Batoh work, if they can transcend their schoolishness.

Sorprendente y hechizada colaboración entre Helena Espvall (Espers) que tras el precioso disco con Meg Baird & Sharron Kraus se cruza en su camino, nada menos, que con Masaki Batoh quien lleva un par de décadas reescribiendo los códigos del acid-folk y la psicodelia, más que un preferido en f. ya lo sabeis. Me evoca fácilmente a los primeros discos de Ghost, creo que con eso ya queda todo dicho, pero hay que añadir que con Helena al lado todo brilla un poco más. Sí, uno de los discos del año.

aldea f.: ghost
download

beth jeans houghton

beth jeans houghton

y su Ep en Birds Records

black moses

Adiós Isaac, el último que quedaba se fue.

sir richard bishop

sir richard bishop - while my guitar violently bleeds (locust, 2007)

"Bishop creates abstract and dissonant fingerstyle webs that evoke those famous LSD experiments with spiders; and he stretchesout in long raga-influenced improvisations that accelerate into flatpicked furies. " - Acoustic Guitar

This is an essential document by one of America's most original and inventive unaccompanied guitaristsworking today. While My Guitar Violently Bleeds is a splendid three piece gem in which the good Sir branches out & nods to points west, east & otherworldly. Classic spaghetti western tinged spidery fretwork(“Zurvan”), Fushitsusha style feedback drenched psych decay (“Smashana”) and a brilliant lengthy raga epic (“Mahavidya”) round out the proceedings by the Sun City Girls master musician.

Atrapado quedarás en la telaraña de Mahavidya: to finish the album off we are treated to the album's longest piece, the 25 minute epic 'Mahavidya', a haunting raga underpinned with an Eastern drone allowing Bishop to effortlessly fingerpick over the top. Meditative and involving we hear the track build slowly and subtly from sparsely picked out notes to the kind of frenetic strumming and desperately technical playing the man is probably best known for.

download

valet

valet - naked acid (kranky, 2008)

Naked Acid is the second solo release from Portland artist Valet, aka Honey Owens. She states: "These songs were Inspired by the Pacific Northwest landscape, semi-conscious dream states and the idea of one's dna code being accessed as eternal memory. I started off with the idea to make a 'songs' record but it really didn't turn out that way. Instead the record became it's own story. Track one is a static beach journey duet with Adrian Orange, and tracks 3, 4 and 5 are collaborations with Mark Evan Burden (Silentist) on drums."

From the gentle narcotic haze of the album opener "We Went There," which is dissected by Honey's trademark incendiary guitar work, to the lazy alien country blues of "Fuck It," and through the hyperventilating rhythmic distortion of the closer "Streets," Naked Acid is a fever dream of ghostly incantation and smudged psychedelia. Honey Owens follows up her widely lauded Blood Is Clean album from early 2007 with another trip through the fertile garden of her imagination. She will be touring starting in mid-February to support the album.

download